


tell me how all this will ruin us

by suburbanstereo



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Minor Injuries, Minor Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong, Relationship Study, Unhealthy Relationships, but i liked it so here y'all go, once again unbetaed, this is gonna be sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27629891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suburbanstereo/pseuds/suburbanstereo
Summary: Everything exists in threes.
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Kudos: 12





	tell me how all this will ruin us

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this a while (?) ago and i hope it still conveys what it needs to LMAO i've been running out of brain juice lately

Here’s the thing. 

Everything exists in threes. There are twelve months in a year. Twelve is a multiple of three. Jeno’s birthday is on the 23rd of April. Three. You know how people consider three to be a lucky number?

Here’s another thing. 

Jeno doesn’t believe in it.

*

Objectively speaking, Jaemin is a nice boy. People say that a lot about him, and it stands to reason. He was class president every year in middle school, the kid who won _Best Smile_ three years in a row (it was an official award!), the one who landed the role of Dorothy in their seventh-grade retelling of _The Wizard of Oz_ \- the angel who could do no wrong.

Jaemin didn’t get into fights or sneak out or talk back to adults.

There’s less of a truth to that than everyone thinks.

*

People aren’t all that perceptive in this town, because somehow they think that Jeno’s a nice boy too. And Jeno, very aware of all his faults, knows that’s bullshit.

*

Throughout their four years of highschool, Jaemin and Jeno only talk three times while they’re in school.

The first time is a bit of an accident.

Taeyong comes back from his shift at the diner with a bruise decorating his left eye and a bloody nose that stains his shirt red. The shirt that his boyfriend had gotten for him. Jeno knows because he’d been there, at the small party held in their tiny apartment, with Taeyong and Jaehyun crowded round their little dinner table and Taeyong’s face had lit up with a quiet fondness when he peeled back the wrapping paper to reveal a shirt with a patch of hand-made embroidery just beneath the collar. Jeno knows that too, because he’d been there when Jaehyun pricked his finger on a needle and also when he drove down to the store at 12 in the morning just for thread. 

Point is, it’s a big bruise and it doesn’t fade overnight and Jeno winces when Taeyong pokes at it, concealer brush trembling in his hand. 

“Don’t tell Jaehyun,” Taeyong warns quietly, not looking away from the mirror. 

Jeno says nothing, just nods. 

It’s not spoken of in their household, about where Jaehyun’s from. Jeno knows and Taeyong knows, but none of them acknowledge it. Taeyong’s in enough danger having been swept off his feet by some son of one of the most dangerous gang leaders in their city. 

“We can’t risk it,” Taeyong brushes past him and grabs his keys off the table. He glances at Jeno behind him, still standing in the living room with arms crossed over his chest. “Not a word, Jeno.”

The first few drops of rain outside echo the ones on Jeno’s cheek. Jeno scrubs them away, a lot more aggressive than necessary.

There’s a bus that goes down to the diner where Taeyong works and for a moment Jeno considers turning right at the crosswalk and heading down to the bus stop instead. The diner is fifteen minutes away, plenty of time to prepare himself, and there he sits, glaring down at his pale knuckles, seething. Waiting. 

Then someone lands on the bench next to him and Jeno looks up, startled.

Na Jaemin stares back. “What are you doing?”

Nothing. That’s what Jeno would normally have said. But right now, he’s in that dangerous gray area between mad and sad, and healthy emotional expression has never been his forte. So instead of his usual response, he says, “I’m considering going to beat up some assholes down at the diner.” A pause. “You?”

Jaemin’s eyebrows quirk in surprise. “No way. I was on my way to rehearsal but this seems way more interesting. Kind of unexpected of you, by the way.”

Jeno shrugs and answers, “They beat my brother up,” as if that’s a reasonable explanation at all.

A sly grin breaks across Jaemin’s face and he leans back in his seat. “You want some help?”

Jeno frowns at him but Jaemin doesn’t see it. “I thought you had rehearsal to go to.” It’s even more unexpected of Jaemin to skip school, much less skipping school to beat someone up. 

Jaemin laughs once as the bus pulls away from the school. He looks away from the window. 

“This sounds more fun.”

Jaemin is still laughing when they collapse, out of breath, on one of the benches in the park. An ugly red gash bridges the junction between his knuckles. Jeno sinks down next to him. He doesn’t look much better than Jaemin, a bruise similar to Taeyong’s already starting to bloom on his cheek, arm scratched up from being thrown onto the ground. 

“That was insane,” Jaemin says, a little breathless. His eyes are shining. From exhilaration or shock, Jeno can’t tell. 

“I guess.”

Jaemin turns to him and frowns. “It’s not every day you get to have an extra spiked adrenaline rush like that, you know.” 

“We could have died,” Jeno says simply. His cheek is stinging like crazy, making his eyes water, and he’s sure Taeyong’s going to freak out about it when he gets home.

“Touché.”

They sit in silence for another ten minutes, until the familiar headlights round the corner and screech to a halt a little way away from where they’re sitting. Jeno has never been more grateful to see the rickety old city bus.

“Bye,” Jaemin says, which is fitting enough, considering that they don’t see each other again for the rest of the school year.

*

The second time is less of an accident and more of ‘a fateful encounter’, as Jaemin likes to put it.

Every time Taeyong has to cover an extra shift, Jeno takes a trip down to the library. Taeyong doesn’t let him use the air conditioning when he’s home alone, and it’s much too hot to be cooped up in their apartment, anyway.

It’s his time to catch up on assignments and nap while the overhead fan in the library gives him headaches. 

His eyelids are beginning to droop as he turns the page to the third act of Macbeth. No, his mind barely registers as the words melt together into one giant puddle of black and frayed yellow. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” a voice comments from behind him. Jeno’s head snaps up. He’s heard that voice only once in the last year and it brings back the metallic memory of blood in his mouth.

Blood. The sound of blood rushing in Jeno’s ears. His finger as the needle pierces through skin. The jarring whistling of the kettle on the stovetop, steam hissing through the spout, as Taeyong is nowhere to be found. 

“What is it?” Jeno asks wearily. The steam fizzes out from under his ribcage. He still doesn’t look up at Jaemin. It’s not like he doesn’t know what he looks like. He’d seen that face on opening night, stupidly bright smile reaching from one corner to the other as he gleamed under the spotlight.

Jeno knows. He hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away. 

Jaemin seems blissfully unaware as he pulls out a chair next to Jeno. “Is this how you greet your friends?” 

“Are we friends?”

Jaemin shrugs and taps a finger against his chin. “Well, we’re not enemies, are we?”

No, Jeno supposes. But the opposite of love isn’t hate, after all. It’s indifference. 

“Macbeth, huh?” Jaemin quips, extracting the book from Jeno’s hands. “I wrote an essay on that once. It got a B, even though I didn’t even write it myself.” He says that last part with wide eyes, a hand cupped around his mouth, and a lack of guilt. 

Jeno smiles at the ridiculousness of it. “Why are you telling me this?”

Jaemin leans back in his chair. “Because we’re friends, that’s why. Friends share things with friends.”

“Okay,” Jeno agrees, and the grin Jaemin flashes his way is brighter than auditorium spotlights under a velvet-red curtain.

*

The third time around, it isn’t an accident.

It rains on graduation day. Jeno might be inclined to feel sad about it, since that means no pictures, no commemoration of _I went to hell and survived_ , no final middle finger up to the universe. 

Instead he’s here, huddled under the bleachers because he’d insisted on going home himself so that Taeyong could have the day off without having to worry about him. 

“You might get struck by lightning like this,” Jaemin laughs, a freeing sound against the torrential downpour of rain. The rain has stuck his hair to his forehead, water droplets running down his temples. They look a little like tears.

“That would be welcome,” Jeno says back as thunder cracks over them.

Jaemin shakes his head and steps closer, close enough that Jeno can feel the heat pouring off his body. The look in his eyes is one of tenderness. “I used to think you were a nice boy, you know?”

“I knew you were never one,” Jeno smiles, before Jaemin leans in.

Kissing someone in the rain is romantic until it isn’t. It’s like a scene straight out of a movie, almost, minus the orchestra playing in the background, swelling into a triumphant crest before it gives way to the sound of rain all around them, like a symphony all in one.

If it is, then Jeno doesn’t hear it.

*

Everything exists in threes.

Jeno and Jaemin speak for three times in high school before they kiss.

They go out for three weeks before they start dating.

It lasts for three years before things implode.

What the first fight was about, Jeno doesn’t remember. He supposes it was about something silly. Because all fights start out that way, with one simple reason that acts as the spark, burning down the fuse.

Jaemin gets invited to a party, and asks Jeno to come with him. It’s at the house of someone Jeno doesn’t know the name of, only that he’s Mark’s cousin from America. That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that after four drinks, Jaemin’s already flitted to the dance floor, talking and laughing alongside a tall kid with a thick accent. Jeno never thinks too much of it. Jaemin has friends of his own, of course, and Jeno knows he’s always been touchy and affectionate with people he knows. But this time, Jaemin’s leaning against the guy, hand on his arm, too lost in the conversation, and there’s something about it that doesn’t sit right with Jeno. 

He asks Jaemin about it the next day. He half-expects Jaemin to just brush it off, but instead Jaemin says coldly: “That’s none of your business.”

Jeno’s never one to be jealous. But Jaemin’s so defensive about something that should have been so insignificant that it leaves Jeno wondering if there’s something between the lines that he’s misread. 

“Okay, fine, so I got his number,” Jaemin continues. “But we’re just friends, okay?” 

“Then why didn’t you just say so?”

Jaemin throws his hands up in the air, a sign of mock defeat. “Why should I? I don’t owe you anything.”

He’s right, Jeno thinks, deflating. But the silence between them lasts four days, and as always, it’s Jeno who apologises. As always.

✀

The second fight is uglier.

Jeno doesn’t even know what they were fighting about, to be honest. He remembers a lot of yelling, a lot of tears, remembers the breaking of glass, a handprint on his cheek that stung and didn’t go away until he used up all their ice. There are curses so bloody they’d have painted both their mouths red, choking them till their lungs fill up with the weight of their own words.

Jaemin goes back home for a month and doesn’t pick up Jeno’s calls. They know it’s for the best because Jeno knows one of them will end up dead if they see each other. And it won’t be Jaemin.

The only reason Jeno remembers the fight at all is because most of it had passed in a haze of red-hot fury, a chessboard of wanting and thinking and longing and then settling on hating. 

He remembers the way Jaemins' face had looked when he opened that door. Unyielding and cold. The feeling of Jaemin’s warm breath on his, hands slipping under his shirt, gripping tightly enough to leave bruises on his hips, his waist, his ribs. 

Later, when they’re in the bath, Jaemin whispers something and kisses Jeno’s hand, lingering and soft, yet still not enough to cover the bruises he’d left. 

Jeno shakes his head and tangles their fingers together. The tears fall of their own accord.

Neither of them apologise.

✀

The third fight, the fight that shatters what they have, should be the angriest one yet. But it isn’t.

It’s a small argument. One that isn’t even big enough to constitute a fight. Small enough that it shouldn’t be the thing that breaks them. 

Jaemin kisses Jeno on a rooftop. His hands settle on Jeno’s waist, fingers pressing back into the bruises he’d created months ago, renewing them, reviving them. 

“I love you,” Jeno says, softly, just enough so Jaemin can hear. His heartbeat thuds inside his chest. Aching to be let out.

“I’m sorry,” Jaemin says back, closing his eyes.

Neither of them are telling the truth.

✀

Three months after they break up, Jeno sees Jaemin at the bus stop. His hair is a lighter shade of brown that it used to be. Jeno wonders if it still smells like him.

Jaemin doesn’t seem to notice him.

No one notices when a tear rolls down Jeno’s face and lands on the ground. 

It disappears quickly anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> i love richard siken poems. title is inspired by a line from scheherazade


End file.
